Siege of Tourane

The Siege of Tourane was the first battle of the Cochinchina Campaign, occurring when a Franco-Spanish fleet besieged the Vietnamese port city of Da Nang (known to the French as "Tourane").

In 1857, two Spanish Catholic missionaries were executed by the Emperor of Dai Nam, but the emperor's timing was terrible, as the French admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly's French fleet was in the Pacific to take part in a Franco-British expedition against Qing China during the Second Opium War. Emperor Napoleon III sent Rigault's fleet to punish the Vietnamese for their past executions of Catholic missionaries, and the 1,000 French marine infantry were joined by 550 Spanish infantry and 450 Filipino chasseurs tagals from the Philippines. They landed on the southern shore of the Bay of Tourane near the major Vietnamese port of Da Nang, and they faced 2,000 Vietnamese troops guarding several forts in the bay. The French captured Da Nang in September 1858, but they were then besieged in the city by 10,000 Vietnamese troops and forced to evacuate the city. The French ultimately forced the Vietnamese to sue for peace in March 1862 and cede Cochinchina, but it would take 50 years for the French to lay claim to the whole of Southeast Asia.